Chapter 26

When An Rong returned, the light in the room was still on.

She had thought Xu Xiaoye was already asleep, but when she walked over, she discovered a small opening in the raised blanket. Half of Xu Xiaoye’s face was visible inside, staring blankly at the underside of the bunk above her.

An Rong said, “I’m back.”

After a moment of silence, Xu Xiaoye said, “Oh. Thanks for today.”

An Rong’s heart felt heavy. She reached out and pressed her hand against Xu Xiaoye’s forehead.

Xu Xiaoye immediately shrank downward.

The blanket already covered the tip of her nose.

An Rong frowned. “Don’t move.”

Xu Xiaoye obediently stopped moving. She tugged the blanket down enough to uncover her nose and looked at An Rong with round, dark eyes. “You’ve got some nerve, being mean to me.”

An Rong removed her hand, then touched her own forehead.

Xu Xiaoye pulled the blanket farther down, revealing her entire face. Turning her head toward An Rong, she asked in surprise, “You can actually tell like that?”

She seemed to have already sorted out her emotions. All that panic and unease from earlier seemed almost like an illusion, and she even had the energy to tease An Rong.

She looked better.

An Rong lowered her head to look at her, then suddenly leaned over, loosely hovering above Xu Xiaoye.

Xu Xiaoye’s sluggish brain hadn’t even started working properly when An Rong’s sudden movement startled her. She froze completely and stared at her. “What are you doing?”

An Rong braced both hands on either side of Xu Xiaoye’s shoulders and raised a brow. “Didn’t you just say you couldn’t read the original at bailiantales.com tell by touching with your hand?”

Xu Xiaoye: …Did I?

An Rong lowered her head and pressed her forehead against Xu Xiaoye’s.

They were too close. So close their lips and teeth almost seemed to touch, so close their breaths tangled together until it was difficult to tell whose was whose, so close that Xu Xiaoye suddenly felt as though her blocked nose had cleared and she could even distinctly smell the faint trace of sweat on An Rong.

The image of An Rong running back after finding the doctor suddenly surfaced in Xu Xiaoye’s mind. Had she been that nervous?

Her heart pounded like a drum, restlessly and inexplicably agitated.

An Rong watched Xu Xiaoye’s lashes tremble uneasily. In reality, the only part of them touching was their foreheads, but perhaps the distance and position were simply too intimate, creating the constant illusion that they might kiss in the next second. They had crossed the boundary of safe distance and entered each other’s territory, a sensation both unfamiliar and shiver-inducing.

An Rong lightly pressed her lips together, then straightened without letting her gaze wander and said with complete seriousness, “You seem even hotter.”

Xu Xiaoye: …Hoo.

She thought so too.

Standing beside the bed, An Rong silently swallowed. Her gaze drifted aside briefly before she pretended nothing had happened and said, “Go to sleep first. I’ll write something over here.”

Xu Xiaoye exhaled. Conveniently, she didn’t want the light turned off yet and had been struggling to find a reasonable excuse.

An Rong dimmed the light, took out a notebook, and sat at the desk to write lyrics.

The muffled sound of people talking outside drifted faintly into the room. The light beside her was warm and dim, and the only nearby sound was the intermittent scratch of pen against paper. The roaring in Xu Xiaoye’s head gradually faded, and that broken, rustling sound finally pulled her back into reality.

“Thank you.”

The scratching stopped. Xu Xiaoye turned her eyes toward An Rong at the desk. She was right at the age when she was shooting up in height. More than half a month of high-intensity training had slimmed her down considerably, and her clothes hung loosely from her body, hiding her figure entirely, yet she still radiated the vigorous energy of youth.

An Rong turned around, lowered her eyes toward her, and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know… you were afraid of bitter things.”

The light formed a faint halo around her, and a pen was still caught between her long fingers.

Xu Xiaoye clearly remembered the excuse she had come up with and realized it really wasn’t very convincing. She licked her lips and suddenly said, “Oh, right, I forgot to tell you. Do you know why Teacher Chen came over?”

The change of subject was so abrupt that An Rong momentarily didn’t know whether she should cooperate.

So the atmosphere froze for one second.

An Rong lightly waved the pen in her hand. Xu Xiaoye definitely understood what she meant, but if she didn’t want to talk about it, then An Rong wouldn’t ask.

An Rong sighed softly in her heart and cooperatively turned around in her chair, draping one arm over the backrest as she lazily raised her eyes. “What did she come for? Surely not to check the dorms?”

Since An Rong didn’t ask, Xu Xiaoye breathed a sigh of relief.

“What dorm check?” Xu Xiaoye laughed twice. “She said the read the original at bailiantales.comshow has already started airing and told us to create more funny moments in our daily lives.”

An Rong rolled her eyes. “Funny moments aren’t eggs. You can’t mass-produce them.”

The comparison made Xu Xiaoye burst out laughing.

An Rong sighed. Studying and training every day was already exhausting, and now they had to do all this too. It really drained energy. Besides, being naturally funny was something you were born with. An Rong considered herself extremely serious and boring and truly had no talent in that area.

What she didn’t know was how many casual viewers had nearly died laughing at her yangge dance steps after the program aired.

The live comments were unprecedentedly unified.

What kind of ridiculous little cutie is this?????????

Is she serious? A public-square-dance girl?

Where did that cool post-production from earlier go? Are the edited red sash and green fans serious?

Pick me for the girl group, I can do this too!

Ahhh the girl twisting along with her is so cute, I’m in!

Two kindergarten children hahahahaha

I’m shipping them! Huarong is number one in the world!

Xiaorong is number one in the world! They kissed! It’s stamped and certified! IT’S REAL!

Look at the way Xu Xiaoye looks at An Rong. That is not ordinary at all.

Mudslide girl, I love her, “Big Bridal Sedan Chair” is way too catchy hahahahaha

Give us more daily footage and behind-the-scenes clips!!!

No one in the dorm knew what kind of reaction the broadcast had gotten. An Rong and Xu Xiaoye didn’t know either. An Rong vaguely remembered that in her previous life, the show had been received pretty well and that a lot of group fans had started following them around that time. Back then, Wang Yunshui had gained a huge number of fans thanks to her astonishing speed and effortless performance, establishing a “genius” image.

At the time, An Rong hadn’t suspected anything either. After all, she herself had barely scraped through as a rookie. Everyone else looked like an expert to her. There was always someone better beyond the mountain and beyond the person, and since they were all in the same group, having someone capable was a good thing.

Later, reality proved that she had been far too naive.

Xu Xiaoye laughed for a while, then hesitated and said thoughtfully, “There’s… one more thing.”

She didn’t know why. When she had agreed to it earlier, she hadn’t thought much of it, but now her heart was jumping all over the place. She had no idea how to organize the words and kept feeling that saying it aloud might cause some unpredictable consequence.

An Rong looked up at her. “What?”

Xu Xiaoye licked her lips, pulled the blanket away completely, and said in a voice barely above a whisper, “The company wants us to… be a little closer.”

Xu Xiaoye crossed her eyes slightly and stared at the tip of her own nose. Had she been indirect enough for An Rong to ​bailiantales.com​understand? Shipping CPs was already extremely common these days. Would An Rong refuse? She was still underage; was doing this a little inappropriate? Ah—what was she supposed to tell Chen Xin tomorrow?

A war raged inside Xu Xiaoye’s head.

An Rong blinked. “What does the company want us to do? I didn’t hear you.”

An Rong looked completely confused. She genuinely hadn’t thought in that direction. Xu Xiaoye was sick and already short of breath, and she had deliberately lowered her voice even further, so An Rong had only heard the first half.

What kind of nonsense was the company planning now? Some little secret they couldn’t let anyone hear? An Rong frowned, simply turned off the camera, then moved to Xu Xiaoye’s bedside and crouched down. Lowering her voice too, she said, “Go ahead.”

Xu Xiaoye: …

Xu Xiaoye turned her head to look at An Rong, who seemed a little displeased. Oh, right. An Rong was only seventeen and had never been exposed to this industry before. Maybe she genuinely didn’t understand.

Marketing fake male-male or female-female chemistry was something Xu Xiaoye had known about for a long time. Plenty of boy groups and girl groups used it. It was basically another way to build personas and attract fans. Chen Xin had asked her to sound An Rong out first and see how she felt about it.

In Chen Xin’s words: “You have more fans than she does, and your current popularity is higher too. Pairing the two of you together might make it look like you’re giving up a little. But if the fan response is good, you still benefit. Audiences eat this stuff up now. We’re not actually asking the [bailiantales.com]two of you to have anything going on—the company wouldn’t agree to that either. Just interact a little more on camera, act a little closer, a little more ambiguous. You understand the limit. You’re girls; linking arms or putting an arm around someone’s waist is all completely normal.”

At the time, Xu Xiaoye had watched Chen Xin turn off the camera, thought over what she meant, then remembered that An Rong didn’t seem to like getting close to people very much. So she had said she would discuss it with An Rong first.

But now that it was actually time to discuss it, she couldn’t seem to get the words out. It felt almost like she was forcing an innocent girl into something improper.

Xu Xiaoye felt her face growing hot and her mouth going dry. She licked her lips, let her gaze drift toward An Rong, then hurriedly looked away as if she had been shocked. Stammering, she said, “Um… I’m only asking you about it first. If you don’t want to, then forget it.”

An Rong frowned in confusion. What was this about? Xu Xiaoye was making it sound pretty serious.

“Just say it.” An Rong nodded and leaned forward slightly, looking as though she were listening with complete seriousness.

If Xu Xiaoye was the one asking her, there wasn’t much An Rong would be unwilling to do anyway.

Xu Xiaoye gave a dry little cough. It was a perfectly normal marketing tactic to attract fans. Just say it boldly. First effort full, second effort weaker, third effort exhausted! What was there to be afraid of? Worst case, An Rong refused, and that would be the end of it.

“The company wants us to act a little more intimate with each other.”

Xu Xiaoye said it all in one breath and felt that “intimate” was exactly the right word—subtle, tactful, simple, and elegant.

An Rong’s brows lifted slightly.

She froze.

Already?

They hadn’t even finalized the group yet. Wasn’t it a little too early to start promoting a CP?

In her previous life, the company had only brought it up after their debut, during the meeting where everyone’s public personas were decided. With the same people involved, why had it been moved forward so much this time?

An Rong thought about it for a long time and eventually concluded that she had performed better in this life, so the company had already decided she had an excellent chance of debuting and had moved the CP promotion forward. That way, they could market the two of them as “love at first sight.”

Heh.

Not bad.

Xu Xiaoye pressed her tongue against the inside of her cheek and watched An Rong fall silent.

Oh. She really didn’t want to do it after all.

That made sense. The little brat apparently already had someone she secretly liked.

Tsk. Puppy love, and a secret crush at that, and she was even this serious about it?

Was there any boy her age who was actually good enough for her?

Childish.

Not mature at all.

Xu Xiaoye didn’t like forcing people either. Suppressing the strange little emotion inside her, she glanced at An Rong and pressed down the corners of her mouth. “If you don’t want to, then forget it. Right now it’s only a preliminary idea anyway. Chen Xin will definitely come ask you tomorrow. You can tell her yourself.”

Xu Xiaoye suddenly felt stuffy and hot, so she threw the blanket off and piled it against the wall.

The movement was a little too large and sudden. One second they had still been whispering secrets, and the next she had flipped the blanket away with her long arms and legs.

An Rong caught the corner of the blanket that had fallen beside Xu Xiaoye’s waist. Her gaze burned as she looked at Xu Xiaoye, concealing the scorching emotion beneath it, and whispered softly, “I never said I wasn’t willing.”

Her fingers tightened around the blanket as though she were holding Xu Xiaoye’s hand. Lowering her eyes to look at her, she said, “It would be my honor.”